Mid-Sodor Railway Chronicles
by Alexander II Mapleshield
Summary: My take on The Life and Adventures of Duke the Lost Engine - inspired by the Rev. W. V. Awdry and the SiF Audiobooks
1. Prologue - Granpuff

_**Dear Readers, **_

_**I think this is the second biggest project that I intend to finish. I managed to find the audiobooks on the Sodor-Island website, as well as on Soundcloud, I looked further into it. There was always one line from the original story that got me thinking - "Other engines came and went." - and I wanted to know who those engines were - after I found out that the Skarloey Railway and Mid-Sodor Railways were never linked.**_

_**Naturally, I did find out, thanks to the audiobooks, but I just had to go a little bit further than that. So I did. And I found a little wiki-page that detailed the layout that Reverend Wilbert Awdry had put together many years ago. The page also had a list of locomotives that had run on the little electric circuit. So armed with this new information, I decided to try writing out these stories.**_

_**Almost all of the characters written in this new piece have been mentioned in the audiobooks, but there were a number of names that were excluded. My aim here is to write them in, and see where it goes.**_

_**I hope you enjoy it.**_

_**Sincerely, Alexander II Mapleshield**_

* * *

Once upon a time,

There were three little engines, who lived in their own little shed, on their own little railway.

Their names were: Duke, Stuart, and Falcon.

Duke was Brown, Falcon was Blue, and Stuart was Green.

Duke was the oldest. He had been the first engine on the line; and named after His Grace: The Duke of Sodor. He was enormously proud of this and wanted everything "just so"; as such, Duke loved to keep the little engines in order.

Whenever Duke saw that they'd done anything they shouldn't have, or anything that he thought was wrong, he would say,

"That, would never suit his grace."

Other Engines came and went, but Duke outlasted them all; Stuart and Falcon used to call him: "Granpuff".

Duke was fond of them and tried his hardest to keep them out of trouble, teaching the both of them how to behave like "Proper Engines should".

Stuart and Falcon were fond of him too, as he was so wise and kind; but often, they did get very tired of hearing Duke talking all about "His Grace."

Sometimes to tease him, they would wink at each other, and chant solemnly:

"Engines come, Engines go. But Granpuff? NO! He goes on. But for how long? Forevermore!" And they would scurry away before Duke could ever say anything, chortling as they went.

One day, Duke was just finishing his day's work, and he was making his way back to the sheds. Stuart and Falcon were already there, simmering quietly in the evening light. A few other engines were there as well - Master, Mistress (colloquially named Duchess), Johnson and Pioneer - and the others would be back soon.

"Evening youngsters," Duke said kindly,

"His Grace and his Family will be visiting us tomorrow, so I want you both to be on your best behavior."

"Oh, here he goes again. Stuart . . .?" The two narrow-gauge saddle-tank engines grinned and winked at each other, and they began to sing their song.

Duke was puzzled, and felt a little put-out after being interrupted.

"Engines come," Stuart began,

"Engines go." Falcon cut-in.

"But Granpuff?" They asked together,

"NO!" They cheered.

"He goes on!" Falcon proclaimed,

"But for how long?" Stuart asked,

"FOREVERMORE!" They cheered together, and all the engines laughed heartily.

Duke, not appreciating the literary talent of his two, young protégés, had lost patience,

"You impertinent scalawags!" He scolded.

Stuart and Falcon nearly lurched backwards, and some of the other engines jumped.

"His Grace's visits are always of the utmost importance. Whatever are you young engines coming to nowadays?" Duke asked.

The Elder Engine looked up, as if he were asking God to answer him right then and there. His Driver and Fireman tried hard to hold their laughter back as they watched their engine despair. The other engines in the shed let out a little chuckle, barely loud enough to be heard.

Stuart and Falcon had recovered,

"Never mind Granpuff," Falcon soothed, "We're only young once-"

"Well, you'd best mind!" Duke cut him off sharply, "Lest you want end up . . ."

He paused dramatically, as Tim, Jerry, and Jennings backed down into their berths.

"Smudged. Like our old number two."

Both Stuart and Falcon ceased their giggling; the other engines gasped and fell silent.

"Uh, say Granpuff?" Falcon ventured,

"Yes, Falcon?" Duke knew where his two youngsters were going with this.

"Uh . . . whatever did happen to our old number two?" Stuart asked bluntly.

Both engines had wondered why their numbers had been mixed up since the day either of them had arrived. They both looked to their mentor, as he began to tell them what had happened.

"Stanley was our number two." Duke explained, "He's an American and was very cocky. He'd show off at any chance he got. He rode roughly and often came off the rails. I'd warn him to be careful, but he'd always say: 'Listen Bud, in the States, we don't care a dime about a few spills.' 'Well, we do here,' I said. All he did was laugh. Then one day, Manager said he was going to make him useful at last. Stanley stopped laughing then."

Duke paused impressively.

Stuart and Falcon were hanging on the precipice of Duke every word.

"Bu-whu- Why? What'd Manager do?" They stammered together,

"He took away his wheels, and had him turned into a Pumping engine, that's what he did."

Stuart and Falcon stared, disbelievingly. Until,

"He's tellin' the truth y'know . . ." said an unfamiliar voice.

"What was that?" Stuart and Falcon shivered.

"Whom do you think?" Duke asked ominously,

"It came from behind the shed." Stuart quavered,

"Indeed, he's still out there." Duke looked knowingly at the two engines, "And he'll never move again . . ."

After hearing all of that, Stuart and Falcon were unusually good for several days.

Those several days turned to months, and those months turned into years. Stuart and Falcon became really useful engines, and all three of them were happy together for a great many years.

Then hard times came.

One by one, the mines in the hills closed, the fleets of engines shrank the less they had to do as their lives went on.

At last, their railway was closed.

With the closure at hand, worse trouble followed soon after; people came to buy the engines.

"We'll take Stuart and Falcon." They said.

But none wanted Duke; they thought he was 'too old to work'. This made Duke feel sad. But the little engines were quick to try their buffers at changing his mood.

"Cheer up Granpuff," Called Stuart, "We'll find you a nice railway."

"Then you can come over to keep us in order." Falcon finished.

They all tried to laugh bravely and be cheerful, but none of them thought it would really ever happen. After the young engines left, Duke's crew set to work; the driver and fireman oiled and greased him one last time, then, sheeting him snugly, they bid their old engine farewell.

"Good bye, old boy." Said his driver, "We'll see you again soon . . . I hope."

"We'll never forget our time here." His fireman added.

Closing the doors, the two men went away to find work.

Duke was alone, locked up in the shed.

He had nothing now, save his memories, his surroundings, and the hope that he would, one day, be found.

Then he thought of something,

"Whatever happened to His Grace?" He wondered, "It's not like Sir Norramby to have forgotten about me . . ."

Duke had been right.

Sir Norramby hadn't forgotten about Duke.

But His Grace had been killed during the Second World War; and the new Duke, his first-and-only born son, hadn't heard of this little engine. And he would not hear of him until nearly twenty-three years later on.

Duke had no way of knowing this, and he began to have doubts about him.

Not willing to lose faith, Duke pushed those thoughts aside.

"Oh well," He thought, "I'll go to sleep. It'll help to pass the time." He reassured himself.

Many more years passed; winter torrents washed soils down from the hills. They spilled over the shed and dried in place. Trees and bushes grew all around it.

No one could know that a shed had been there. Let alone, a little engine asleep inside of it.

As for Stuart and Falcon?

Well, we all know what happened to them.

Those two ended up on the Skarloey Railway.

The Thin Controller gave them new names and had them repainted in the traditional Skarloey Railway livery – A Bright, Splendid Red, with Blue stripes and Gold-brass accents.

Stuart became Peter Sam, while Falcon became Sir Handel. They prefer their new names, and colours.

All of this happened many years ago, but neither of them forgot about their beloved Granpuff; and often, they would talk about him while they were alone.

Things came to a head-on when the one hundredth birthdays of Skarloey and Rheneas rolled around. It had been announced that The Duke of Sodor would be visiting them on that day.

Falcon and Stuart were very excited to hear this. But they were most disappointed when the Duke did actually arrive, for he was a human – not the engine that they had been waiting for.

But I'll say no more, or I might spoil this and the next story . . .


	2. A Brief History

Prologue:

Now, before we can learn about Duke or the rest of the Mid-Sodor fleet, we must know how the railway first came to be. Many, many years ago . . .

The Arle Valley was situated in the Peel Godred Region on the Island of Sodor. The valley was a quiet place then. No cars racing along, no railway cutting through the land, just a luxuriant, verdant landscape, reaching on towards the Irish Sea. Although, it did have a road.

A very simple dirt road.

It had been churned up by many farmers and merchants, on their way to the western port at the seaside village of Arlesburgh. At the east end of the road, were the Hills – this part of the region was known as Cas-ny-Hawin, and mostly consisted of mines and farms – among them was the coal mine near Kirkleas, and the dairy farm near Ballamoddey.

All of the people who lived here were keen to move their goods to wherever they could be sold or exchanged for money and other raw goods, and since they were quick to see that travelling along the old dirt road was only too tedious to keep up. The gaping distance from either end of the valley was quite a long haul on foot; although the livestock, such as horses, donkeys and cows did make the journey easier, they sometimes made the journey much more arduous than it should have been.

Although, it had been laid into the land, and it stretched along for a full ten-and-a-half miles

The gaping distance between either ends of the valley was no easy way to travel, thus the People of the Valley required some form of transportation, as horses with their carts were often too stubborn to walk along the well-trodden path in a straight line.

Since the livestock were being uncooperative, the farmers and merchants tried what-ever they could think of to set their horses straight (A/N: Pun intended). After the blinkers and blinders didn't work, they then decided, that something else would have to be done – this something was, of course, to build a line for them, which covered the valley from end to end.

Some of the local plate-layers helped too and ran sets of rails, from the newly opened Slates and Lead Mines in the East, all the way down to the old village by the Harbour in the West.

Thus did begin the life of the Arle Valley Tramway and Delivery Company.

The Company's Home Base was established in Arlesburgh Port Marketplace, and communication lines were set up along the track, from the Harbour and going down to the Digging Sites.

This was done so that any farming or merchant-groups that brought their goods to the Quayside would be able to make arrangements for stalls or berths to be made specifically for them.

This was a decent arrangement, but the producers at the far end of the line had to suffer the shorter end of the bargain – the extra distance between their homes and the Port meant that they would need more time to get all of their goods together, and travel down to the Western Coast for Market day.

And, although the Tramway had been a vast improvement, the rails and sleepers hadn't been laid down properly over the uneven ballast beneath.

And as if that hadn't been enough, the livestock were quickest to let their opinions be known; they hated trotting along the track-bed, and were often found tripping over the unstable sleepers.

Although there was less time lost to reorienting the horses on the varying journeys up and down the valley, there was enough found for the livestock to waste. By driving them slower and slower to either side, the animals were more easily distracted by nearly anything in fact, which would hold their attention, aside from their drivers.

The delays on the journeys up or down – depending on where you lived – ended up causing great parades of traffic along the tramway line where the Farmers and other Vendors would complain and argue.

This made the trek to the Harbour much longer than it should have been, and the track, being as badly balanced as it was, did nothing to help. To make matters worse, some Vendors were unfortunate enough to lose some of their hard-earned produce on the journey in.

The Trinket Merchants were no help either; they would sometimes sneak in and steal the allotted spaces from some of the Farmers so that they – the Merchants – could sell their wares.

With the uneven track, the distracted animals, and sometimes, the inevitable loss of produce and other goods, as well as being deprived of a selling space, the Farmers became very cross with the Merchants.

"We need to get our good to the port to make our money!" They would say, "If we keep delaying like this, we'll have to abandon our homes! Then what'll we do?"

But the Merchants were not so kind as to understand the full plight of the Farmers in their Region.

"And we have refined goods that require shifting!" They would argue, "And we'll go out of business if we don't sell enough! What do you expect us to do?"

Sometimes, the Farmers were able to understand the perspective of the Merchants, but all the same, they were unwilling to relent. As time went on, the disputes between them gradually escalated. Eventually, the Vendors began fighting amongst themselves for room on the tramway.

One day, it was worse than usual. The Merchants and Farmers were at each other's throats with insults and retorts. Soon, it all came to a head; a huge fight broke out on the port. Policemen joined in, if only to break them up, but to no avail.

The men and even some women argued and fought, until a horse-drawn carriage drew forward into view. The carriage was well-crafted, and carried an air of exquisite dignity with it.

And so it should have done!

For, inside the carriage was His Grace, Sir Jonathan Arnold Norramby: the Earl of Sodor.

His Grace had come down from his residence at Ulfstead to the Harbour to discuss a deal with the Arles Valley Tramway Company.

When he arrived, the board room was mired with irate councilors calling out other members for misusing the funds they had been granted some few months before. Sir Norramby, not wanting to let this continue, slammed the butt of his walking stick against the ground, gaining the attention of everyone in the room.

"I beg your pardon, councilors. Please, excuse my intrusion," He began, graciously, "It has come to my attention that earlier this year, one of your members had presented himself to me, with an Offer of Consolidation."

The Councilors' eyes widened and either looked to the other with mild worry.

All had hoped from the bottom of their hearts that this would not be their company's walk-in paper; if it was, that meant that they would have to disband the council, and remove the railway line from the valley.

The Council Members watched with bated breath as His Grace went over a few of the clauses the contract paper contained.

"I am willing to agree with the terms of this offer, and will therefore allow you the funds to rebuild the line. On one condition . . ." He paused, impressively, "I have a team of architects and designers at my disposal. If you will allow them to work with your labourers, then the tramway line will be rebuilt and perfected."

The councilors listened carefully as Sir Norramby made his proposal.

"However, if you gentlemen should you agree to this venture, I would, personally, like to take on the role of General Manager, so as to oversee our valley-tramway's overhaul."

Sir Norramby paused again, this time to allow the gravity of his own offer sink in. The councilors whispered and deliberated amongst themselves. And the meeting was called to order once again.

Nearly seven minutes passed before an executive decision had finally been made.

"We, the Arle Valley Tramway Council, do hereby agree to the terms you have proposed to us."

The Head Councilor said; the finality of his statement was completely unquestionable.

"Welcome to the Board, Your Grace."

With that, the councilors stood and bowed to their newest high-ranking member.

And so, it was in the year 1860, the Duke of Sodor was tasked with the fundraising of an expansion project in Arle Valley.

Nearly one full year of events later, Sir Norramby had helped the company raise enough money to start rebuilding the tramway.

Sir Norramby carried the brunt of the expenses on his shoulders; and thanks to his efforts in running many fundraising events for the railway, as well as several other side investments, the construction of the Mid-Sodor Railway was well underway.

Although, he said that the tramway was going to be overhauled, it would be much more accurate to say that the tramway was completely torn up, and replaced with a proper Narrow Gauge Railway.

Now, while Sir Norramby oversaw the entire process, the actual rebuilding of the line was left in the hands of three very Esteemed Railway Men and Engineers from Wales.

These workers had been renowned throughout England, and all of Sodor had heard of their achievements. They are known today, as the Spooners of Ffestiniog; both Mr. Charles Easton Spooner and his sons: George Percival Spooner, and Charles Edwin Spooner.

Spooner the Senior was a consultant for the building company, as – at the time – he was busy designing the Ffestiniog Railway in Northern Wales. The Younger Spooners then took over the project for their father, and made a series of changes to the original plans that Sir Norramby and Spooner the Senior had first agreed on.

Although the changes were unexpected, they made railway safest for public travel. The Sons of Spooner designed a series of loops which rounded the steepest slopes to make the climbs more manageable.

Not only was this safer, it was also a genius move – the original plan involved cutting through the very base of the hill, and moving all the way from one end to another; which was an incredibly dangerous move, given that a cave-in would be catastrophic.

The Mainline took nearly ten years to complete, and by 1870, it was ready for commercial use.

By this point, His Grace had done so much for the Arles Valley Company that the Council Members banded together, and commissioned the Locomotive Designers at Boston Lodge Works to build three saddle-tank tender engines, in honour of Sir Norramby's hard work. But they're another story.

While the loops did effectively reduce the gradient substantially, they increased the length of the whole railway; the Tramway itself was only twelve-and-a-half miles long from the time it was laid down.

The Railway that replaced it was twice that distance; exactly twenty-five miles long, reaching from Arlesburgh Port, and all the way to the Hills of Cas-ny-Hawin.

In order to lay the line and bridge the gap, the railway cut into the steepest hill four different times. The cuts were tunnels; the steepest and most dangerous of which, was named: The Mountain Road. Despite being a complete danger-zone for the unprepared, the scenery along that part of the line was absolutely gorgeous – according to the Board of Directors.

Of course, since the railway now did cover twenty-five miles from the Hills and to the Docks, so the Council had decided that there should be three groups managing the whole of the railway; one for the Mainline, one for the Docks, and one for the Mines.

This way, with their funds split and invested in three different ways, and they could manage their respected sections more efficiently.

The Council was made up of twelve people – thirteen, when including Sir Norramby – and so, naturally, the council split into teams of four.

The first group of four took over the mining area in Cas-ny-Hawin, while the second group of four took over Arlesburgh Port, and the third group of four took over the Mainline.

Now, wild question here.

Can you guess where the Head Councilor wound up?

You might be surprised. We all know who he is.

He was given the position of Mainline Manager, and the main care-taker of the engines who stayed at the shed. And he kept his position until the Mid-Sodor Railway's closure many years later.


End file.
